منصر إنجيلي أمريكي يتظاهر بالشذوذ ليتفهم أهله ثم صلر منافحاً عنهم
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الشذوذ الجنسي للنصرانية في الغرب وحول العالم: موضوع صحيفة الجارديان
البريطانية الأخير حول منصر “إنجيلي” أمريكي من طائفة البروتستانت قرر
التظاهر بميول جنسية شاذة لمدة سنة ليصدر كتاباً عن الشاذين من النصارى
معتبراً اياهم أعظم “ايماناً” منه وأكثر تمسكاً بديانتهم حتى صار ينافح
عنهم باسم الصليب!! الحمدلله على نعمة الإسلام وكفى بها نعمة
صورة الخبر من موقع الصحيفة
تفاصيل الخبر بالانجليزي
Why a Bible belt conservative spent a year pretending to be gay
Timothy Kurek, centre, author of The Cross in the Closet, with friends on his first Gay Pride Day in Nashville
Timothy
Kurek grew up hating homosexuality. As a conservative Christian deep in
America's Bible belt, he had been taught that being gay was an
abomination before God. He went to his right-wing church, saw himself as
a soldier for Christ and attended Liberty University, the “evangelical
West Point”.
But
when a Christian friend in a karaoke bar told him how her family had
kicked her out when she revealed she was a lesbian, Kurek began to
question profoundly his beliefs and religious teaching. Amazingly, the
26-year-old decided to “walk in the shoes” of a gay man in America by
pretending to be homosexual.
For
an entire year Kurek lived “under cover” as a homosexual in his home
town of Nashville. He told his family he was gay, as well as his friends
and his church. Only two pals and an aunt – used to keep an eye on how
his mother coped with the news – knew his secret. One friend, a gay man
called Shawn – whom Kurek describes as a “big black burly teddy bear” –
pretended to be his boyfriend. Kurek got a job in a gay cafe, hung out
in a gay bar and joined a gay softball league, all the while maintaining
his inner identity as a straight Christian.
The result was a remarkable book called The Cross in the Closet, which follows on the tradition of other works such as Black Like Me, by a white man in the 1960s deep south passing as a black American, and 2006's Self-Made Man,
by Norah Vincent, who details her time spent in disguise living as a
man. “In order to walk in their shoes, I had to have the experience of
being gay. I had to come out to my friends and family and the world as a
gay man,” he told the Observer.
Kurek's
account of his year being gay is an emotional, honest and at times
hilarious account of a journey that begins with him as a strait-laced
yet questioning conservative, and ends up with him reaffirming his faith
while also embracing the cause of gay equality.
Along
the way he sheds many friends, especially from Liberty, who wrote
emails to him after he came out asking that he repent of his sins and
warning that he faced damnation. He does not regret their loss. “I now
have lots of new gay friends,” Kurek said.
But
it was not a straightforward journey. Early on Kurek decided to try to
acclimatise to Nashville's gay scene by visiting a gay nightclub.
Entering alone, he soon found himself dragged on to the dance floor by a
shirtless muscular man covered in baby oil and glitter. As the pair
danced to Beyoncé, the man pretended to ride Kurek like a horse to the
disco music and called him a “bucking bronco”. It was all a bit too
much, too soon. “I want to vomit. I need a cigarette. I feel like
beating the hell out of him,” Kurek writes.
But
soon things started going better. In order to avoid unwanted sexual
passes from men, Kurek recruited Shawn to act as a faithful boyfriend
and he rapidly became part of the Nashville gay scene. He explored gay
culture and found it to be as diverse and interesting as any other slice
of American life. In one gay bar, Kurek was stunned to discover gay
Christians earnestly discussing their belief in creationism. “I found
gay Christians more devout than me!” Kurek says. He became active in a gay rightsgroup and wound up joining a protest outside the Vatican's embassy to the United Nations in New York.
However,
there was a cost to the experiment. In order to gauge his mother's true
reaction to the news that her son was gay, Kurek read her private
journal. In it he found that she had written: “I'd rather have found out
from a doctor that I had terminal cancer than I have a gay son.” But
Kurek's journey also became her own. Eventually she too was won over and
changed her views. “My mom went from being a very conservative
Christian to being an ally to the gay community. I am very proud of
her,” he said.
Kurek
also experienced firsthand being called abusive names. Though he
himself had once called gay protesters at Liberty “fags”, he found
himself on the other side of the fence of insults. During a softball
practice session in Nashville, a man walking his dogs called Kurek and
his team-mates “faggots”.
Kurek
had to be restrained from confronting the man and then broke down in
tears at the shock. “When I was first called that for real, I lost it. I
saw red. I felt so violated by that word,” he said.
Finally
Kurek's journey ended when he revealed his secret life and “came out”
again, but this time as a straight Christian. However, he says that one
of the most surprising elements of his journey was that it renewed his
religious faith rather than undermined it. “Being gay for a year saved
my faith,” he said.
Kurek
also said that he felt his experience not only should show conservative
Christians that gay people need equal rights and can be devout too, but
that it can also reveal another side of evangelicals to the gay
community.
“The
vast majority of conservative Christians are not hateful bigots at all.
It is just a vocal minority that gets noticed and attracts all the
attention,” he said.
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